Well it's a business decision. OADs cost money.

In other news:

The pope has been found to be a catholic.
Bears defecate in the woods.

Being on a poor 1MB connection (best I can get) iplayer will be of little used to me unless I can download the program and watch later.
As Bandwidth and speed is an issue for many people (particularly in the evening/weekend) then downloadable storable content is a must. Anyway is iplayer really needed - its for BBC Only, with many programs already being repeated and if I want to watch something on iplayer I can do so from my PC (or console).

I feel so few people will use this gimmick that Humax would have been better off spending time improving the HDR in other ways and fixing all the bugs.

Examples i could think of would be :
Proper ethernet connection to allow you to play video / files over the network and an ftp interface
divx support
customisable features such as chosing colours and content of epg etc
Being able to delete files at any time

I am sure there are many more "selling" features taht could have been added

And then go on to mention what I consider to be 3 gimmicks that the majority of users wouldn't make use of.

there lies the problem: people's wants and needs are varied, so whatever Humax fixes or doesn't, there will still be criticisms. Most people want a reliable, which IMO it mainly is, machine, and are happy for the bell and whistles to be there for the tecchies.

I quite agree. For me the iPlayer is a sideline gimmick. If I want to see a BBC program later on I have got a PVR so I will record it. If I miss something, it is almost guaranteed that it will be repeated fairly soon. I'm not going to do a massive download to watch an inferior quality picture at the cost of possibly having to pay more to my ISP.
OTOH I use the EPG daily, and it is a constant source of irritation to me because the colours don't contrast well enough for me. Sky have white on blue because that is one of the best colour contrast combinations. White on grey is very stylish, but for me, unreadable.

Iplayer will be useful to me, we occasionally find ourselves using iplayer on our wii to get it on tv, quality is v.bad. However agree that abilty to download and play at reasonable quality is the killer feature, especially if sites pop up to offer movies or sport - don't forget that the update is NOT just iplayer although that will be the first content source.

I wonder if the long awaited Firmware Update will be the last one? I don't expect Humax will support this product much longer and will roll out a new model in 2010.

Anyone know if the 4Gb limit on file size copying will be removed or increased?

I just discovered the PS3 can play ts files without conversion; just copy them straight over, but I can't copy HD content as it's all over 4Gb in size!!

this is not a limitation of the foxsat but a limitation of the format of the usb stick (FAT32) you can reformat a stick to Ext3 to overcome this

Really? Fantastic, I'll give it a go, thanks

Should I put of the purchase of a Humax HDR until new firmware is released? Its all getting too confusing. Sky sub expires in 9 days

All the negative comments must be putting many potential subscribers of the service. Are there any positives?

How can we answer this. Mine's been pretty flawless as others have also reported. Equally others have lock up problems that I and others don't experience. There is no real way off accessing what percentage are affected. Sure all hds are affected by the real bugs which are reproducable on all hdrs eg scanning for freesat scans deletes ITV HD reservations etc. None of these seriously affect the operation of the hdr especially if you are aware of them. Personally I think the problems that some but not all hdr owners suffer are likely to be hardware related and not fixable by a firmware upgrade although some will say it might be a local condition or the way the hdrs used.

When you sky sub expires the sky box will still work as free to air (or free to view plus ftv with a card) so there's no real urgency and if it's a recording box you could cough up the £10.00 a month to record the free stuff.

I would have no hesitation in recommending the Humax HDR. I have never had $ky but as long as you are aware of the differences in the channels offered you should be OK. As there is no published date for the "update" personally I would not wait. It really depends what your expectations are. For example some folks complain about the remote. Well I have used four different satellite boxes in six years. They all had different remote contol layout and functionality, you simply adapt to the new design and get on with it.

id still get it, its not like theres loads of major bugs, its just thats theres some bugs and annoyances that have taken so long to fix.

Its not the box thats the problem, its Humax attitude to fixing the software.

Even out of the box, it was still miles better than the Sharp and Thomson FV boxes I tried before that both had a 33-50% failure rate on recording.

I agree with the above comments, i have had six sat boxes, humax hdr is by far the best

I'll agree too. The bugs described are merely annoying niggles that we've waited for ages for humax to fix. The box itself is still a very good piece of kit and certainly worth the investment if you dont want to keep shelling out money to sky.

I'm happy with my box, but will be even happier once the niggles have been ironed out.

What worries me is if adding iplayer support junks my boxes by making them un-reliable.

Also as the product will soon be a year old I doubt we will get many more (if any) upgrades or patches.

All their efforts will be on the new model.

Automan.

I have had my Humax PVR for 6 months now and it has been flawless. If the channel and program line up meets your needs then yes I would highly recommend it. Yes others have had problems, however as always happens on forums, the people with problems tend to dominate the posts. When a post like yours crops up, us happy customers tend to speak out.

Without the upgrade, for me it's fine.

Had my 1st lock up today - don't know if this helps Bob, but had just booted, everything was working fine. I typed 105 into the handset (for channel 5) and the display showed CH105. Then everything froze and I had to turn it off at the wall.

If it does Humax will have to work very hard and very fast to correct the issue.

Not providing an update can't get them into any trouble beyond the damage that has already been done to their reputation as a 'responsive' manufacturer but remotely bricking people's boxes would be a serious issue.[/quote]

[/quote]

Humax don't have a reputation for being responsive with software updates. Perhaps thats where some frustration lies. Perhaps its because they are popular and most people seem pleased with their purchase. There have been the odd occasions in the last 5 years where I witnessed Humax act swiftly in the software updates department but they were only in responses to a serious bug in the software and that they were really affecting everyone.

Apart from those occasions, Humax have a reputation for being in the few that develope software updates - yes - but very much in their own time. There is a tendancy to be very slow with updates with Humax; in fairness the bug fixes that arrive are also accompanied some useful improvements and features.

If the iplayer software update comes and in the wild new problems are discovered, bug fixes are likely to take a while, unless they are very bad and affect everyone badly - thats they only time I see them go "all hands on deck"

Hmm, I sometimes wonder if the major complainers have a standard set-up, as the majority of users will have, hmm

Mine is probably the most unreliable box I've ever had for recordings!! Yes my signal isn't the strongest, and this has been suggested as being a reason, but it just randomly 'forgets' to record all sorts.

My old Thomson Sky HD box only ever failed a couple of recordings and if I started my subscription would probably be as totally reliable as it ever was.

My Pace PVR3 Sky Plus box NEVER missed anything, ever!!

My 9300 seems much better, always does what it should do.

My old Virgin V+ box only ever missed a couple but no longer can be used as I'd have to pay again to re-subscribe so they could send me another box!!

My Manhatten ST550 always does as it's told, but of course all must be done manually; start time, stop time, channel etc so it's not very convenient.

My LG HDD/DVD recorder seems fine but only has an analogue tuner so is a load of hassle recording via scart from a Freeview box with another timer to set, but as both are set for weekly recording for my favourite programs, it acts as a back up.

The list goes on.....

In the meantime, my Humax HDR, although I love the way it works, simply cannot be relied upon to record anything!!

Cant wait for the software update here, hope it sorts the box out. I'm using iPlayer and ITV's version loads at the moment to watch stuff the HDR has missed!! It means I now have a dedicated PC connected directly to the TV with no other monitor just for this purpose.

Therefore, if they dont fix the recording bugs, the iPlayer facility would be pretty useful for me.

If your signal is not the strongest, surely that should be the first area to address. Who knows when the update will arrive and it may not be the cure you hope for.

Other people have mentioned a poor signal as the cause of there problems. Other boxes on other platforms suffer the same.

Hopefully one of the more technical savvy posters can help.